Category Archives: Breaking News (All Categories)

1World Dmc, one of the leading Destination & Event Management Company has announced its foray into the United Arab Emirates under the brand “One World Travel & Tourism” located in the heart of Business Bay, Dubai. With its credible & rich experience in handling HNI Travelers, medium-to-large MICE movements and Big-Fat Indian Weddings, One World Group opens another destination for its B2B clients globally and also adds Financial Services & Relocation business to its portfolio. After spending years and running successful operations in Thailand, the management of One World Group saw a sizable opportunity in the destination UAE, which offers unique & uber-luxury experiences as well as a diverse product mix. Sharing his views Anshuman Mitra, Founder & CEO of One World Group, said “At the onset, we present our compliments and extend our highest respect to the visionary leadership of Dubai & UAE, under whose exemplary leadership, they not only opened Dubai to International tourists by successfully managing the pandemic but also launched the most awaited event on the planet “Dubai Expo 2020”. This vision, backed by an ever-evolving world-class infrastructure puts UAE and in particular Dubai, in the front seat, fuelling the economic as well as aspirational growth for all stakeholders. “We are elated and proud to take the One World portfolio to the UAE and with our rich experience in handling HNI Travelers, M.I.C.E, in-house capabilities in bespoke Catering, Destination Weddings & Celebrity Management, we are well-positioned to cater to the ever-evolving needs of our guests visiting UAE. Our primary focus will be on enhancing the overall experience of our global travellers to the UAE, as well as curating their dream weddings in exotic locations.

Travel trade In India can learn to sell Europe, America, Asia and Australia again. Get the on-ground situation report and updated travel protocols of these destinations in Hindi at the Thomas Cook webinar today at 3pm IST. To attend register on https://event.webinarjam.com/register/385/8v79mirn or contact jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or call +919650196532.

IRIS Reps partners has not just survived, but thrived in the last few quarters and so did IRIS Reps. Year 2022 is poised for a strong recovery for them, as international air bubbles get lifted, flight frequencies increase and capacity increases. Alefiya Singh adds that the company is gearing up for its next phase of growth across its business verticals. The 2022 year has given us tremendous opportunity to make new connections, reinstate the contract with existing partners, and announce a series of senior appointments to ramp up its strength. IRIS Reps proud to represent Luxury resorts in Maldives; Coco Collection Maldives, Makunudu Island Maldives, Kuda Villingili Resort Maldives, Sri Lankan Resort ; Amari Galle Sri Lanka, DMC partners; Tour Managers Fiji , Millennium Tours Azerbaijan. Attractions for South Africa include Marine Dynamics Shark Tours which is the recent venture added in the account. Singh says, “We cannot change or predict each and every new surprise and challenge what fate has in store for us but there’s tremendous pent-up demand, which we are hoping to cash on.” Alefiya Singh has been in the travel industry for over two decades, starting with tourism boards, airlines, representations and many more. She helms her team in India and adept at collaborating and implementing innovative high profile travel and hospitality brands and aimed to develop the business with her client centric approach.

A Qatar Tourism delegation was in Mumbai recently, led by Philip Dickinson, Vice President International Markets, Qatar Tourism, along with Sandeep Shevale – Tourism Marketing & Promotions and Deveekaa Nijhawan – International Public Relations & Communications. The delegation’s DMC participants covered Discover Qatar, Al Tawfeeq Travel and Travel Designer W.L.L. The team was also supported by BRANDit, India Representative of Qatar Tourism. Berthold Trenkel, Chief Operating Officer, Qatar Tourism, said “We are pleased to re-establish our presence in the India market. The objective was to highlight the various facets that Qatar offers not just in the lead up to the FIFA World Cup, but beyond as well. The aim is to leverage our tourism assets based on six demand spaces identified in line with our vision, namely Sun, Sea and Sand; Active Holidays; Relax & Rejuvenate; Cultural Enthusiasts; Luxury City Breaks and Romantic Getaways. With the launch of new hotels, theme parks, cultural hotspots, retail outlets, leisure projects and more.” To reaffirm trade partnerships, Qatar’s national carrier, Qatar Airways in association with Qatar Tourism hosted a networking dinner at The St. Regis Mumbai on 14th March 2022. The interactive evening was well-attended by travel trade partners representatives. The guests were acquainted with the destination and informed about various tourism products, developments and projects underway in Qatar. “India is and will continue to be a significant and rapidly growing market for us at Qatar Tourism. Pre-pandemic, we have witnessed a significant rise in arrivals from India and look forward to accelerate our efforts in sustaining the momentum and fully unlocking the potential of travellers across segments of leisure, MICE and weddings. It is an exciting time for the global tourism industry …

Vervotech, a SaaS-based travel technology company, has announced a new strategic partnership with GRN Connect, to address hotel data duplication challenges. Hotel mapping technology plays a vital role by enabling the vast distribution market to have standardized hotel content. Hotel mapping can help third-party distribution channels sell their hotel inventory smartly with zero duplication, minimal booking errors, and increased revenue. However, hotel mapping remains complex for most. Through this partnership, Vervotech is well-positioned to deliver their disruptive technology to remove duplicate hotel data and deliver standardized, real-time content. This will be an essential driving factor in providing GRN Connect’s client a paramount experience. Vervotech takes away the complexity with advanced technologies, including large-scale aggregation, AI-based processing, and ever-evolving ML models. Vervotech’s hotel mapping platform is powered with cutting-edge technology to de-duplicate hotel data map hotel content with 99.999% accuracy and a coverage of 98%. Additionally, their platform is completely agnostic to the source of the hotel content and delivers the latest content with real-time updates. Rajan B, Senior Director Partnerships at Vervotech, said, “We are working to streamline the complexities of unstructured data. When we resolve this with advanced technologies, it spurs innovation, helps businesses grow, and expands choices for consumers. And this partnership with GRN Connect advances us to our mission.” Deepak Narula, Managing Director at GRN Connect added, “We are excited to partner with Vervotech and leverage their hotel mapping technology to optimize our mapping process. We are confident that Vervotech’s disruptive AI-driven hotel mapping platform will enable us to be more efficient and create a differentiating customer experience in a highly competitive environment.”

Fanatic Sports, the Joint Exclusive Sales Agent of MATCH Hospitality in India for the sale of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ Official Hospitality Programme is estimating an exponential revenue growth for the showpiece international men’s football championship, to be held in Qatar. “Indian market for official hospitality is approximately 4-5% of the global market and Fanatic Sports is expecting to contribute to more than 50% of this ever-rising market scenario in India. As Official Hospitality Programmes are becoming a key part of corporate entertainment, rising income levels, a whole new generation of young aspirants and passionate sports fans indicate that people not only have the knowledge but also want to build lifelong memories. We identified this opportunity and pioneered in curating this once in a lifetime experience,” says Raghav Gupta, Founder and CEO of Fanatic Sports. According to industry estimates, the global sports industry is more than Rs 600 billion and with India moving to the concept of experiential tourism this has resulted in redefining how Indians traditionally watched sports. This year’s FIFA World Cup will be value for money as one can enjoy complete match experience along with food, beverages and lounge access.  “Sports experiential market in India has huge potential. Despite pandemic impacting travel, we have seen a steady rise in Indian sports fans wanting to travel for such experiential travels. In 2018, the hospitality sports revenue business had generated close to Rs 80 crore but this time we are expecting India to be among the highest revenue generators for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™,” said John Parker, Director at MATCH Hospitality AG, appointed as the worldwide Exclusive Rights Holder of the Official Hospitality Programme for …

Maharashtra Tourism has initiated a 9 city road show tour across the nation. As a part of this initiative, Maharashtra Tourism conducted a road show in the glorious city of Delhi. Milind Borikar (IAS), Director of the Directorate of Tourism, Govt. of Maharashtra said, “We at Maharashtra Tourism are organizing a road show series with a core motive of promoting tourism industry in Maharashtra and to boost inter-state travel and tourism opportunities. We are happy that post the second Covid wave, hospitality sector in Maharashtra is witnessing a steady increase in recovery and travel companies too are seeing surge in the booking trends. It is astounding to have received such an overwhelming response from Delhi towards Maharashtra Tourism road show and we wish to see the same response from other cities as well.”

Rupinder Brar, Additional DG, Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, in an interview said that the Buddhist circuit in India has gained a massive boost with the addition of the Kushinagar airport, which is an airport with the capacity to receive international flights. “India now has 140 airports, and 20 of them are international airports. There will be a number of airports being added to India as we move forward” she added.

India continues to have the largest share of inbound travellers to the APAC region, at 24.4% of total arrivals in Q1 as of 11 March. Not a bad result when considering the air ticketing data from ForwardKeys shows that international arrivals in APAC in Q1 was down by 86%. However, in terms of recovery India as a destination is performing at -59% vs 2019. The best performing region in APAC for on-the-book arrivals is Pakistan with a 0.2% increase vs the same period in 2019. The Maldives and Bangladesh are also showing strong signs of resilience.

Travel trade In India can learn to sell Europe, America, Asia and Australia again. Get the on-ground situation report and updated travel protocols of these destinations in Hindi at the Thomas Cook webinar today at 3pm IST. To register, contact jaspreet.kaur@ddppl.com or 9650196532. Register directly at https://event.webinarjam.com/register/385/8v79mirn